Vol. 183 December 15, 2017 Santa’s Dirty Little Secrets

The recent deluge of headlines that have outed famous men for past discretion sparked in me a tiny bit of curiosity about the “most famous one of them all” … Santa Claus! Eagerly, and strangely expectant, I Googled “Santa’s Dirty Little Secrets”, only to find these :

However, my Google search of Santa did turn up several medical fun facts.

75% of kitchen sponges contained Salmonella, E.coli, and fecal matter compared to only 9% of bathroom faucet handles. The NSF recommended heating dampened kitchen sponges in the microwave for a minute. I already knew that. I watch “Mom” on TV. On one show mom, badgered by her daughter about a dirty kitchen sponge, put it in the microwave and walked away. The not-so-smart boyfriend then walked in and opened the microwave to put in his coffee cup, paused, reached in, picked up the sponge, regarded it with great interest and remarked, “I always wondered how they made these things.”

Toilet seat, toilet handle, and bathroom light switch were way down in the germ quantity ranking. Personal items like cell phones, keys, wallet, computer keyboards, and bottoms of purses grew out germs, but relatively few, and mostly non-disease-causing germs like yeast and mold. Surprisingly, money had one of the lowest germ counts. The highest counts of disease-causing germs (E. coli) were in the kitchen, … no, not the bathroom.

Speaking of germs in the bathroom, I was recently told that hanging your toilet paper roll the “wrong way” could cause the spread of bad germs, specifically that toilet paper “hanging under and behind the roll encouraged the growth of Salmonella.” So, I Googled it. Googled what? “Toilet Paper Orientation”, of course, and where else but Wikipedia.

“Toilet paper when used with a toilet roll holder with a horizontal axle parallel to the floor and also parallel to the wall has two possible orientations: the toilet paper may hang over (in front of) or under (behind) the roll. The choice is largely a matter of personal preference, dictated by habit, (except in the case of the person who believes that under (behind) nurtures the growth of Salmonella (ed. note)). In surveys of US consumers and of bath and kitchen specialists, 60–70 percent of respondents prefer over. Some people hold strong opinions on the matter. Advice columnist Ann Landers said that the subject was the most responded to (15,000 letters in 1986) and controversial issue in her column’s history. Defenders of either position cite several advantages of each. Some writers have proposed connections to age, sex, or political philosophy, and survey evidence has shown a correlation with socioeconomic status.”

I found no mention of Salmonella, but I did find one reference concerning the spread of germs associated with toilet paper orientation. It was a blog aimed at restaurant managers and their employees.

“Much of bacteria found in public restrooms is E. coli from human feces, a common source of food poisoning. E-coli is easily transferred from surfaces to your fingers and thence to anything that you eat with your hands. Which brings us to hanging toilet paper. The moment when a restroom user’s hands are most likely to carry bacteria is when they reach for toilet paper. If the toilet paper is hung “over”, their fingers only touch the toilet paper that they’ll be using, which will subsequently be flushed. However, if the toilet paper is hung “under” there’s a good chance their fingers will brush the wall as well, leaving a deposit. If so, every subsequent restroom user who reaches for toilet paper runs the risk of not only of picking up the bacteria that’s been deposited already, but also leaving more for the next user to pick up.”

Who knew? It’s amazing that any of us even survive a week out there in the world, or in our house.